


If I Could Begin

by jazzinjuke



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gem!Au or Universewatch if you will, Minor Violence but not Graphic, Multi, Steven Universe AU, Tagging as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 07:09:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7608628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzinjuke/pseuds/jazzinjuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most things could never be perfect. It's a shame they couldn't have been either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Could Begin

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I didn't expect to be here, but here I am, writing and stuff. Hope to update at least once a week so stick around! :3

From the first moment of her being, she was aware of many things.

Her form was the first and foremost at her attention as light took shape and settled around her. Tall and sturdy, but still trim and sleek, powerful limbs and powerful feelings. Feelings, _feelings_ : the feeling of her limbs where they met the floor, holding her firmly up, the feeling of air tingling across her skin, but not unpleasantly, the feeling of that air gust into her chest with her first breath, unnecessary but there was something satisfying about it anyway.

She was aware that these feelings were an illusion. Not exactly, but close enough, and she knew that this form had the purpose of being her vessel to move, to interact with the world, to receive sensory information and feedback to then act upon. Her true self was concentrated in the center of her forehead in the form of a perfect yellow gem.

And she _was_ perfect, she was also aware of this, could feel it. Could feel it in the subtle shifts of her body, every movement powerful, intent, in control, perfect.

All this she became aware of in the amount of time it took to take her first, deep breath, already self aware within her first living moments, and she calmly opened her eyes for the first time.

* * *

 

She came into the world filled with much commotion. When she first opened her eyes, there were many other gems buzzing about her, all of them smaller than her ( _inferior_ ), speaking at once, taking notes, and babbling among themselves. There was only one other gem like her in the room, and their gazes locked onto each other instinctively, singling the other out. A gem (a _perfect_ gem) nestled on her cheek below her left eye, they acknowledged each other with a quick nod of the head and a lifted eyebrow, both in the dark about what was going on. But they knew was that they were equals. Above the rest.

More and more gems came into being as she stood there, still no explanation, their forms shining bright as they took shape, and they were perfect too, although they were rather short, hardly taller than the biggest Peridot in the room.

It was only until they had all formed that they were given explanation. And she didn't like it one bit.

They were soldiers. That's what they were meant for, and she felt disgust when she learned that she had been created artificially. Synthetic, that's what they called her. They weren't leaders, they weren't royalty--they were tools. It warred with what her entire being was yelling at her, screaming--that she was perfect, flawless, that these pitiful gems were beneath her and should worship the very ground she stood upon. Instead, they sneered at her and expected her to answer to them, as if she was below them, as if she were anything but perfect.

But they had no choice. The synthetic diamonds were brought before the White Diamond, and it was abundantly clear that she was the superior. As such, they were bound to her words, her commands. She regarded them with indifference, disappointed by the perceived flaws-- _why were they so yellow? Why were they so small?_ A by-product of the method used to make them, the head Peridot answered, but quickly followed that they were not defective despite it.

Defective.

_Them?_

She hated it. She hated being looked down on, but the Diamond Authority was absolute. You always obeyed your superiors. It wasn't just because of the hierarchy, no. It ran so much deeper than that: a compelling and inescapable instinct built into them, to carry out the will of the Great Diamonds, the pinnacle of perfection that inspired awe and reverence, and the synthetic diamonds were not exempt from this instinct. So, she bit her tongue and did not argue.

The only comfort she had was that her sisters knew that they were above this all too, and could silently revel in the fact that they were perfect, together, as they were assigned to their holding rooms and left in peace until they would be taken and prepared.

"This is a bad show."

The Diamond she had seen first said quietly as they waited, only talking softly and shortly amongst themselves.

She agreed. 

* * *

 

For a week, they were sent to a training facility for quartz gems and they were finally given more information on their purpose. A potential colonizing planet had taken up unexpectedly fierce resistance and were quickly becoming a threat to Homeworld. When so many soldiers, and not just fresh and inexperienced soldiers at that, had fallen, the Great Diamonds had decided a new course of action was needed.

That was when they became truly aware of what their existence was.

They were never supposed to be: artificially manufacturing Diamonds was strictly prohibited. But in the face of the Omnium threat, it was decided that better gems were needed. And there was no better gem than a Diamond. An existence that was forbidden, yet deemed necessary, an existence as nothing more than a soldier, an experiment, a taboo, one that was only grudgingly acknowledged and allowed by others who deemed them barely worthy of existence in the first place.

They were not to let it be known, when they were at the facility. They were a handful of Topaz, Zircon, and Sapphires, and if they let it slip that they were anything but, they could be sure that they would be shattered into fragments to be re-purposed into drills before they could say 'Oops'.

_Bad show indeed._

It set her teeth on edge, and she could tell that her sisters shared the sentiment. Even more so when some snarky Jasper approached them on the first day, looking down at the smallest of her sisters that hardly cleared the Jasper's waist and who returned her glare in silent challenge.

"And what is this?" the Jasper asked, towering above the small Diamond; a cheap shot, going for what appeared to be the weakest of the group, when the Jasper was on eyelevel with herself, "Are we playing host to some noble Gems?"

"We are here to train," her sister, the sharp-eyed one with her gem on the cheek, temporarily rusing as an Imperial Topaz, said neutrally;they had been told not to create conflict .

The Jasper scoffed.

"These Sapphires are here to train? This must be a joke. Go back to your courts and back to your Diamonds, this is no place for gems like you to play warrior. Know your place."

She put her hand on the head smallest Diamond, a mocking smile curling her lips.

Without a word, the Diamond snatched her wrist, fingers not even wrapping around the burly arm entirely but crushingly powerful nonetheless. She twisted the Jasper's arm behind her back, shoved her into the wall, placed a foot on the small of her back and ripped her entire arm off at the shoulder. A pained screech echoed through the halls, cut off as she slumped to her knees and the Diamond caught a handful of her thick, wild hair and slammed the side of her face against the wall.

"How dare you think yourself worthy to lay a hand on me. Know your place," she hissed as the Jasper struggled to remain corporeal, light leaking from the gaping hole of her shoulder.

No one else dared question them that week, and many of the Diamonds couldn't help the smug grins they shared as they trained in combat and learned the skills that would keep them from getting shattered. Even if their handler angrily lectured them about staying in line and reminding them that they were below every gem and as such would not act insolent. A petty victory, but they took what they could because it was clear they would receive nothing else.

At the end of the week, they were sent off to war.

* * *

Their handlers, a war-experienced Citrine that acted as their commander and a Peridot who was there to document their progress and make reports back to Homeworld, a pair of inferior gems meant to keep them in check, were destroyed within the first couple of days on the planet Omnium.

Powerful and perfect as they were, the Diamonds were young and curious. On their first raid, they had captured an Omnic alive and had held it captive to see what it was. They had never seen any other creature that wasn't a gem, so they had poked around with it, dissecting and finding out what made it tick with childish excitement. It turned out that the inhabitants of Omnium had evolved as a curious blend of organic and mechanic over centuries: living machines, computers with thoughts. They held the metal scrap heap down as they rooted around in its chest, metal ribbing and living tendons torn apart to find a glowing core that appeared to be its power source. It screamed and screamed, automated voice cracking and breaking as if it could feel pain, and maybe it could, but they didn't care.

It was when the Citrine and Peridot rushed over to see what they were doing that it happened. Perhaps in a final act of desperation or hope, the Omnic had self-destructed its core and the resulting explosion was incredible. Citrine and Peridot had instantly been destroyed, the closest Diamond had been damaged enough to retreat into her gem, and a few of their forms got light scratches from the resulting shrapnel.

But they had survived. The were Diamonds after all, they were harder than any other and could easily take damage that would be lethal to others.

In the eerie quiet that followed, the Diamonds shared silent, furtive glances.They discussed in low voices what they should do next.

"What do we do with their shards?" one of the smaller Diamonds asked, hushed; her assigned identification was SD-24, having been numbered according to the order that they had first formed in, herself being SD-1.

"Bubble 'em, send 'em back?" SD-37 shrugged.

"And then what?" SD-2 asked quietly, her dark eyes shining with something intense; they all looked around at each other, something similar to nervousness in their faces.

It was almost like none of them wanted to say it, but it was unavoidable: they were alone, without supervision. No leader, no gem to tell them what to do. A group of unwanted gems that were suddenly presented with free agency and unsure what to do with it.

"If we..." 8 started, stopped, and had to gather her courage to continue, "If we did a good job here and beat the Omnics by ourselves without waiting for replacement supervisors...do you think the Diamonds would be pleased?"

That was something they had never spoken of in their short time together. They were plenty bitter about their situation, but none of them ever wanted to admit to the others that they wanted the Great Diamonds' approval. They were gems after all, and the overwhelming urge to serve their Diamonds was never far from their minds, a blind loyalty that none of them could shake because it was part of their being, essential in their programming. Despite being shunned, they wanted the validation. Perhaps even more so, they were hungered and starving for it.

They all looked to her.

It had been an unspoken agreement ever since their first day. It was another thing they had never talked about, but it was a silent understanding that she was their leader of sorts. She had been the first to form, the biggest, the strongest, and they deferred to her even though they were all equals.

"We should report this," she said slowly, "But waiting for new keepers would be a waste of time and we could easily be found by other Omnics before then."

"It's not like we can take commands over the communicators," 15 snorted, "I don't know how none of them realized that all of our technology on this planet is a liability. There's something in this atmosphere that has everything bugged. Some technician our Peridot handler was not to realize."

They all looked to her again. Slowly, she smiled.

"They wanted soldiers to fight. Let's show them what we were made to do."

They slowly returned her grin, hesitant but with growing ferocity, the sparks of something igniting in them.

* * *

The Great Diamonds had not taken it well, but she was determined to show what they could do, could exceed their expectations and blow them out of the stratosphere. With her leading the synthetic gems, a group numbering just under 40, they were able to hit several key Omnic establishments and make leaps and bounds of progress in this war where hundreds of common gems could not before.

They moved with deadly efficiency, unparalleled by any force, and they even had fun with it. Who could kill the most Omnics? Who could get through the most encounters without a scratch? And as things steadily became more deadly, the competition turned to the opposite: who could take the most damage without having to retreat into their gems? The scratches and scars that littered their forms became a badge of pride, a sense of honor associated with them. She proudly wore two long, thin scars on the right side of her face and a couple more on the bridge of her nose, courtesy of a monstrously huge Omnic that had sharp claws and had been a bitch to take down, but she had eventually, singlehandedly she might add.

It was all going well, incredibly well, and they could see in the limited contact they had with them that the Great Diamonds had recognized their talents, if begrudgingly. It was fine until they met the Titans. It was the first they had ever heard of them, and as such, they were entirely unprepared when they were confronted. The goliath Omnics beat down on them, and it was the first time they knew fear.

They needed to retreat, she knew that, but she also knew the longer she watched the fight--no, not a fight, it was crushing defeat with a clear victor-- that there were very slim chances that they could make it out at all, let alone in one piece.

She barked out the order and had them fall back, but there was no escaping. Gritting her teeth in a fierce snarl, she turned to give her sisters a fighting chance to escape and faced the titanic Omnic. It focused in on her and cannons began firing, which she brought up her shield to block, but it was too much. It soon overtook her and she howled in agony as the blistering lasers riddled her form.  
She couldn't hear anything but a ringing in her ears and her own voice and she knew this was her end. However, a form swooped over her, some type of heavy gun in its hands that fired rapidly at the Omnic, disabling the canons before it took aim at the legs. In her fading eyesight, she witnessed them barrage the Titan's knees until it fell, off balance, crashing to the ground in a symphony of thunder. They turned to her then, clear amber eyes set with determination and form framed by the Omnic exploding behind them, nearly pure white hair and clothes fluttering in the aftershock.

She was sure, was her final thought before she vanished, that it was the most beautiful thing she would ever lay eyes on.

* * *

When she formed for the first time after being damaged, she was slightly surprised that she had woken up at all. She had been sure that she had met her end. Awhile ago, they had come across an abandoned facility where they had discovered what religion is, the Omnic texts speaking of something called 'souls' and an 'afterlife' and 'divine beings'. They didn't understand most of it, but she had been so sure that she had witnessed in her last moments the being the texts described.

"One!"  
"One's back!"  
"One, are you alright?!"  
"One!"

She looked around at the Diamonds that were gathered, crowding around her anxiously and there were hands on her, running over her form to see if she was alright, patting her down to comfort her and themselves that she was still there. However, her eyes roamed until she found the sole figure that was not gathered around her, hanging awkwardly off to the side, away from the Diamonds.

The angel was real.

"Who are you?"

The gem straightened up and it was then that she saw the pale gemstone on the other's stomach, nearly white but with hints of soft yellow shining through it and she understood.

"Synthethic Diamond Number 76," she said, quick and professional, "I was sent here to find you and assist in suppressing the Omnics. It would have been much easier to find your group had you kept constant contact with Homeworld."

"76?" she asked, "Where are the others then?"

The Diamond stiffened ever so fractionally.

"There are no others. I am alone."

"Alone?" 2 said sharply, "You have been travelling and fighting Omnics on your own?"

The Diamond shrugged.

"I have not done much damage like your group has, but yes, I did have run-ins with the native species. My objective was to meet with your party and join, anything that happened along the way happened. I picked up some effective weapons though. They are Omnic-made and apparently there's no better way to destroy them than with equipment that was specifically designed for it," she nodded to the heavy gun leaving against a tree One had seen her use to take down the Titan; no wonder it had been so efficient.

"If the Diamonds wish it, you will join us," One said, "Understand that you won't be working alone anymore, we work as a team."

The pale Diamond nodded again, and the rest seemed to take this as an end to the formalities. The tension that had been lingering broke as 36 sidled up to the new, taller Diamond.

"You're pretty fancy-looking," she said, poking curiously at her arms, "I didn't know they were making another batch of us. How come you're so much lighter?"

The new Diamond seemed to be at a loss at what to do; One thought briefly that she didn't have a lot of contact with others perhaps.

"I do not know," she said, "But most of the rest were more similar in color to that one."

She pointed to One and then looked down curiously at 36.

"Why did your batch turn out so small? Are you runts or something?" she asked.

The Diamond froze however, when she felt small fingers digging into her form around her gem. 36 leveled a cool glare up at the new gem and the tension was right back in full force.

"You want to think about your next words very carefully," she said evenly, fingers squeezing dangerously tighter around the pale Diamond, "I am not any less because of my size and I most certainly am not a runt."

"Yes, ma'am," she said quickly, "Apologies."

"Don't worry about 36," SD-37 laughed, pushing the short Diamond aside as she relented her grip, "She's touchy about the whole height thing. We know we're short, but there's not much we can do about that, so don't take it too badly."

"Does this mean the rest of you are all tall?" asked 16, "One and Two were the only lucky ones in our group to be decently big."

"I was the tallest," 76 said quietly, "But the rest were pretty close behind."

One didn't miss the way 76 spoke of her sisters in the past tense, and sharing a look with Two told her that she hadn't missed it either. But, they didn't mention it as they welcomed the new Diamond and filled in One on what she had missed in the twenty four hours she had been in her gem and began plans for their next mission.

* * *

Homeworld had finally managed to get temporary encampments set up so that Gems operating on Omnium could convene and give reports, receive orders and supplies in between missions. While here, they had all taken to covering their gems to keep from prying eyes which brought prying questions, and taken up the fake gem aliases they had used at training. There were, however, more than a few annoying gems that got under the Diamonds skins with incessant questions, a gigantic Smoky Quartz and dwarfish Rubellite being among them.

"What in the _worlds_ is on your face?" SD-10, masquerading as a Yellow Sapphire, asked the stout red tourmaline gem when they first met.

"It's called a beard, gemling," Rubellite scowled at her ignorance, red gem glittering where her right eye should have been, "Native species of some planet I was assigned to at one point had 'em and I liked the look. Now stop gawking, my beard's no more unusual than a couplea royal gems being here."

"It's a new soldier program since none of you seem to be capable of handling the machines on your own," SD-12 murmured off to the side and Rubellite turned on her.

"What was that you--?!"

"Ruby, my friend! Not picking on younglings again are you?" a booming voice called out; a giant of a gem strode toward them, towering well above One and 76. She also had a 'beard' though it was much shorter, and her gem covered the opposite one to the Rubellite, a Smokey Quartz.

"These freshly-mined half-wits have no respect," she huffed, stabbing a finger at the Diamonds, "And stop calling me Ruby, you know that's great insult to an intellectual like myself."

"Rubellite has too many syllables," she waved the shorter gem off with a laugh before she turned to the Diamonds, "And I'm sure they didn't mean disrespect."

"Of course not," One said as she picked up 12 who was having a stare-off with Rubellite, both baring their teeth at each other and snapping in a display of aggression; she was rewarded with a sharp elbow to her side from the smaller Diamond who didn't like to be picked up.

"See there? No harm done!' Smoky Quartz laughed heartily and smacked the tourmaline's shoulder and the Diamond who happened to be closest--76.

The pale Diamond was sent momentarily reeling, but not as much as Rubellite; the Quartz shook out her hand that had smacked the Diamond, confused.

"They must make Gems stronger these days, that probably hurt me more than it did you," Quartz joked, and didn't notice the Diamonds all tense, "Well, come now, Ruby, we're to go for a briefing on our next mission. Best of luck to you, gems, may we meet on the battlefield as comrades and bring glory to Homeworld!"

The two gems walked off, the smaller bickering at the larger one as they went.

"Normal gems are so...." 10 began, not knowing how to finish her thought.  
"Loud?" 25 supplied.  
"Annoying?" finished 36.

"I was going to say 'weird', but those work just as good."

They went on their way to meet up with the rest of the Diamonds in their temporary quarters. One noticed 76 lagging behind, rubbing the spot where the Quartz had touched her.

"Any problems?" she questioned, dallying behind with her, adjusting the cover on her head that hid her gem. 76 looked up at her, expression blank.

"No. No problems."

"All right," she nodded and they followed the others.

* * *

"One," some gem poked her shoulder and she grumbled in her dormant state, "One, One, I saw something."

She opened her eyes in the dimly lit bunker. SD-5, one of the taller Synthetics whose gem was a warm brown, leaned over her; the rest of the Diamonds were stationary, many of them huddled up and piled on top of each other.

"What?"

"I was roaming around," she whispered; 5 had a tendency to always be on her feet and moving and could be quite sneaky if she wanted. The Diamonds would often hear secrets she had discovered while wandering around the base and have a laugh if she found something particularly good, "Around the quarters, that is, and I saw something in the rooms. One of those Quartz gems, you know the big Smokey one?"

"Yeah? What about her?" One asked, sitting up properly.

"She was with another gem, one of them pretty Pyrites. They were...I don't actually know what they were doing. One moment they were doing some kind of footwork, some weird type of fighting style, and then there was a flash of light and then-" she cut off suddenly.

"And then?" she prompted.

"And then they were something new," Five finished in a whisper, "Like....like...I don't know what like. It looked like both of them, but it was something new that wasn't either of them at the same time."

One stared skeptically at her, not having to speak to convey her doubt.

"I know what I saw! I'm not making this up," she hissed defensively, but backed down quickly, "...I wonder if we can do it, too? They looked powerful after...whatever it was that they did."

"You said they were performing a type of fight?" One asked; maybe it was a battle technique and she immediately began thinking of uses for it, "Show me."

"All right, well, they stood like this," she pulled her up to her feet and put a hand on her waist, the other held her own hand; her gem was warm underneath her palm, "And...a few steps like this? I can't remember it perfectly..."

"This is a form of fighting?" One asked, at a complete loss, "What is it supposed to accomplish? How can you inflict damage like this?"

"I don't know," Five said as she lifted up her arm and spun her around, "They did something like that and then-"

She dipped her backwards and One scrabbled to find purchase on Five's shoulders in a panic as her balance was thrown off. They stared at each other for a few moments, brows furrowed.

"I don't know," she said again, frustrated, "This was when the flash of light happened. Did we do something wrong?"

"What are you two doing?"

Five squeaked and let go of One, who dropped gracelessly to the ground on her back.

"Practicing battle techniques," One sputtered out in a rush as she hastily stood up to find Two staring at them; for some reason she couldn't explain, it felt like they had been caught doing something they weren't supposed to. She quirked an eyebrow.

"Interesting technique."

The Diamond didn't wait for them to explain themselves as she rolled over and went back into dormancy. Five and One stared at each other until they burst into quiet giggles. Whatever this thing was, there was something special about it. They wanted to learn more, but agreed to pick it up later.

One didn't notice the amber eyes watching her as they settled down.

* * *

"How long are we going to be here?"

It seemed like they had been here their whole lives. This wasn't an understatement because they had been sent there almost immediately after being created, and in the grand scheme of things, they hadn't been there that long, but they were young so their perception of time was skewed. It had already been a year by Homeworld's time and it had felt like an eternity to the Synthetic Diamonds. And they still hadn't been able to wipe out the Omnic resistance.

It was no longer the fun, exhilarating thing they had first thought it was. The change had probably happened when they lost their first sister, 36, who had gone out when she shape-shifted to an unstably huge size to take down a Titan that cornered them. Unfortunately, it had taken her down with it, fierce and proud and and fighting and magnificent to the end. Now it was the same thing over and over again. Fighting and fighting, poofing out of existence and thinking that it will be your last moments and maybe you'll miss living or maybe you think you might find some peace, only to reform a couple days later and go back to the same thing. Over and over and over. It was all they knew, and all they had ever really known since entering the universe, and it was beginning to look like it was all they ever would know.

They were now down to thirty in numbers. They could tell the Diamonds were becoming bored with them, the disappointment that had greeted them into the world creeping back into their faces every time they had communication. They felt the disappointment burn as they continued to fight to no avail and talks of a peace treaty spread through the gems stationed on the planet.

It was a particularly nasty battle they were caught in. Their team of Synthetics had been forced to join arms with the common soldiers, the Smokey Quartz and Rubellite they had come to know among the troops. Five had asked the question quietly, tiredly, as they hunkered behind a fallen wall of metal that gave them cover, waiting for their chance to move. She and One had never managed to figure out that one battle technique, but it didn't matter much right now.

"Who knows," Two murmured back to her, trying to peek her head over the top to get a shot in; she quickly ducked back down as they were fired at, "Maybe until the Diamonds forget about this miserable planet and we can run away into the stars and never look back. That Rubellite says there are many things to see on the other side of the universe. Maybe we can go see them."

"That Rubellite says a lot of things," One scoffed.

A heavy explosion thundered close to them, breaking through their cover with a yowling screech of metal and they were forced to run for cover somewhere else. But, as they sprinted for all they were worth, One heard a cry behind her. Wildly, she turned and saw 76 had fallen, shot through the leg.

Everything slowed down as she saw red lasers focus on her and heavy cannons begin to charge. She didn't think as her feet started moving, back to the Diamond, the fallen angel. Everything was curiously muffled in her ears, the shouts, the gun fire. She didn't care that this was a foolish decision, didn't pause to think about why she did it. All she knew was that she had to get back to her.

With a flying leap, she landed on top of 76, shielding her with her body and causing them both to skid along the ground at impact, rolling, and even though they were in danger, she felt the strangest sense of calm over take her with the pale Diamond in her arms, there was light from the cannons, there was light all around them, and she felt--

She felt something she hadn't felt in a while.

Powerful.

Strong.

_Perfect_.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr at jazzjnkr :3c


End file.
